α-diversity of taxonomic profiling. (a-d) Shannon α-diversity H-index of Bacteria and Archaea species at week 0 (pre) and week 8 (post). (a and b) Subtle median increases of Archaea α-diversity for patients in both treatment. (c and d) Bacterial α-diversity was significantly raised in the control group (p-value = 0.015), while a moderate median decrease was shown in the exercise group. (e) Percent change (Δ) of α-diversity for Archaea species shows a slight increase in the control group compared to the exercise group (non-significant). (f) Both exercise and control groups show an increase in α-diversity for Bacteria species. P-values were calculated from the Wilcoxon signed-rank test